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Old 04-13-2020, 09:24 AM   #1
Dalin
 
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Saint Paul, MN
Default To Feint or Not to Feint?

None of the PCs in my DFRPG campaigns has ever used the Feint maneuver. Many of them do use Deceptive Attacks. I realized recently that I don't really understand Feinting well enough to provide good advice about when to use it. (Or when their foes should be using it.) What are the circumstances where sacrificing an attack to properly Feint makes more sense than just taking a skill penalty for Deceptive Attack?
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Old 04-13-2020, 09:58 AM   #2
Anthony
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
Default Re: To Feint or Not to Feint?

When you want to follow it up with a called shot. Let's say you have a skill of 21 and your opponent has a skill of 15 with a +2 DB from a shield (parry 12), and you want to stab him in the eye through a helmet (-10). If you just try the attack, you have a 62% chance of hitting, but he has a 74% chance of defending, so your real hit chance is only 16%. If you feint (reducing his defense by 6), you still only have a 62% of hitting, but his chance to defend is down to 10%, so your real hit chance is 56%.
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Old 04-13-2020, 03:53 PM   #3
Dalin
 
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Saint Paul, MN
Default Re: To Feint or Not to Feint?

Ah, that makes sense!

Let me think this through. One of the PCs is a swashbuckler with Saber-20, and Extra Attack-1. Against a foe with good defenses (or lots of DR that she wants to avoid), it would make sense to use her first attack to feint and then target a vulnerable hit location for the second attack. She also has Every One's a Critical, so this would even allow her to target the vitals (-3) while preserving her chance of a crit on a 7.
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Old 04-13-2020, 05:29 PM   #4
Imbicatus
 
Join Date: Sep 2016
Default Re: To Feint or Not to Feint?

Having Every One’s a Critical does making feinting less attractive as if you crit there is no active defense allowed anyway. In those cases I’d rather have two shots at a critical than one.
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Old 04-13-2020, 05:42 PM   #5
zuljita
 
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Join Date: May 2008
Default Re: To Feint or Not to Feint?

You can stack feint and deceptive attack too. For example, the sword spirit is really hard to injure in a duel because of its very high defenses. An opponent might feint on turn one and then deceptive attack on turn two. Seen that done in play.
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Old 04-13-2020, 07:04 PM   #6
Anthony
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
Default Re: To Feint or Not to Feint?

In a more general sense: feint makes sense if you have at least a 3 point skill advantage on your foe and you can't get active defense below 11 without feinting, or a 2 point advantage and can't get it below 12. If you have a 1 point advantage or lower it will always make more sense to just make more attacks. Also, if you have multiple attacks per turn and your opponent isn't dodging, multiple attacks eat up your opponent's active defenses, so you want additional skill difference equal to the number of attacks you can make.
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